In politics, the mere mention of the Bay State is enough to raise the hackles of any self-respecting conservative. It is, after all, the wellspring of modern liberalism, home to some of the biggest names in liberal politics: Kerry, Dukakis, Frank, and, of course, Kennedy.

Add to that list a new name: Warren. As in, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first-term Massachusetts liberal and rising star among the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. She has been hailed as a possible 2016 presidential contender among some on the left. Yet Warren has also become a lightning rod for criticism from conservatives who say she represents no less than a new breed of tax-and-spend, entitlement-rich uber-liberals in the mold of President Barack Obama. Her rise to national prominence has even led some critics back home to dust off the state’s old nickname, “Taxachusetts.”

So she may seem at first blush an odd choice to campaign for Democrat Natalie Tennant in this year’s Senate race in West Virginia — which has become as anti-Obama and anti-liberal as any state in the nation right now. Tennant, the Mountain State’s 46-year-old secretary of state, faces Republican U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, 60, in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

Warren, 65, is scheduled to campaign with Tennant in West Virginia in mid-July. Aligning herself with a Northeast liberal — especially one from Massachusetts — is of course a risk for Tennant, analysts say.

In many ways, West Virginia is the political polar opposite from Massachusetts. While Democrats still outnumber Republicans on the registration rolls in the Mountain State, West Virginia has been turning red at an ever-quickening pace in the last decade. Bill Clinton was the last president to win the state, in 1996. In 2012, Obama failed to win a single one of West Virginia’s 59 counties — yet won all of Massachusetts’ 14.

Sure, both states — like the other 48 — have their rich and their poor. The gritty self-reliance of West Virginia’s coal miners no doubt runs just as deep in the blue-collar swordfishermen toiling away at sea 800 miles to the northeast.

But the overall cultural divide runs deep between the two states. West Virginia’s hardscrabble, coal-driven existence is light years away from the privileged shores of Martha’s Vineyard and the blueblood streets of Boston. More to the point, West Virginia, one of the poorest states in the nation, has developed a deep-seated mistrust of the federal government, and especially Obama, that hasn’t taken root in the relatively wealthier quarters of Massachusetts.

“We don’t like Obama. Period,” a man from Pendleton County said at a garage sale in Franklin last weekend. A postal worker, the man did not want to give his name for fear he might lose his job for speaking to the media. “And Elizabeth Warren, she’s a carbon copy of him. Heck, if she wants to come down here, that’s fine, she’s welcome to it. But she’s not going to win over too many people.”

Tennant says she doesn’t see eye to eye with Warren on everything, especially the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon emissions plan, which she opposes and Warren supports. The plan, energy trade groups say, would be devastating to the West Virginia’s coal industry and would jack up home heating prices on low-income residents.

so exactly how does inviting a leftist fraud, who advanced her pathetic life to great wealth by claiming her high cheekbones were proof that's she is a redskin and entitled to preferential affirmative action treatment

Claiming she was the godmother of the occuparasites rings rather hollow when her $15 million wealth disqualifies her as one of the great unwashed who never had a fair chance at life

He also wrote off WV democrats and WV Unions. The union bosses have been walking a tightrope and not very well. Joe Manchin, the same. The onion continues to peel away. The democrat party, at its core, no longer resembles the party of our fathers' time. Rather than being, for instance, 'pro-America and pro-jobs,' it's pro-amnesty, pro-unemployment bennies, anti-Christian, pro-mosque, anti-energy, anti-military and anti-industrial. Other contrasts are too numerous to mention. West Virginians are West Virginiansfirst.

so exactly how does inviting a leftist fraud, who advanced her pathetic life to great wealth by claiming her high cheekbones were proof that's she is a redskin and entitled to preferential affirmative action treatment

Claiming she was the godmother of the occuparasites rings rather hollow when her $15 million wealth disqualifies her as one of the great unwashed who never had a fair chance at life

Warren gets a lot of good press (because the press is leftist) and she gets a lot of attention from the left wing of the left wing, but I think her appeal to a larger voter-base is dramatically exaggerated. I’ve not polled the country, but I just don’t get a “Desperate nation turns its eyes to a new savior: Elizabeth Warren!” vibe happening.

So...OK, send her to WV...but I'm not sure it's going to have the desired effect.